


Sam Winchester and His Awesome Idea

by xsilverdreamsx



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, First Kiss, Fluffy, Humor, M/M, Middle School, POV Sam Winchester, Team Free Will
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-25
Updated: 2012-06-25
Packaged: 2017-11-08 12:54:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/443405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xsilverdreamsx/pseuds/xsilverdreamsx
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One week before the big family cookout, the Campbells declare The Challenge. Dean wants to win this. There’s just one small problem.</p><p>They’re one man short in their team.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sam Winchester and His Awesome Idea

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Etharei](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Etharei/gifts).



> **Disclaimer:** None of the characters belong to me, and are owned by CW. Just playing in the sandbox here. :D For those curious, here's a pic of a [trebuchet.](http://img.rlt.com/m/10201.jpg)

One week before the big family cookout, the Campbells declare The Challenge. The prize: tickets to the hockey game.

Dean wants to win this.

There’s just one small problem. They’re one man short in their team.

Sam points this out to Dean, who plonks his forehead onto the table in response. “Fine. Next person who walks through that door gets drafted right away,” he announces to Sam, his voice muffled by the table.

They’re hanging out in the school library, and classes ended about two hours ago. No one is coming in through that door -

\- which opens.

Sam looks up, and grins. He recognizes the skinny-looking sophomore who’s from Dean’s classes. “Hey, Cas.”

He notices that Dean whips his head up immediately, eyes widening.

“Dude,” Dean elbows him, just as Sam’s about to wave Cas over. “Not him!” he hisses.

Sam looks at him, surprised. “Why not? You said -”

Dean shakes his head, looking stubborn.

“Dean, you’re being unreasonable. Weren’t you making a big deal over winning this?”

“Yeah, but he’s … he’s … look at his hair!” Dean sounds desperate.

Sam narrows his eyes.

\- + -

“No.”

Sam is taken aback by the abrupt response from Cas, who continues walking.

Sam hurries after the quickly departing figure - how does this guy move so fast? - and tries again. “Cas, please? We need your help.”

Cas ignores him. Up ahead, Sam sees Dean waiting in the car, ready to head home.

“We’ll pay you!” Sam shouts.

Cas stops in his tracks, and turns around slowly.

“Cash,” Sam continues. Over Cas’s shoulder, he can see Dean mouthing _what the hell are you doing_ but he powers on.

“Come on, Cas, please? Dean will be a complete dick if we don’t win,” Sam pleads.

He sees Cas flinch a little, throwing a quick look over at Dean who’s now studying the dashboard intently - he’s even pretending to clean it, what the hell - before turning back towards Sam.

“You don’t have to pay me,” Cas says quietly. “I will help.”

Sam fistpumps in the air, before grabbing Cas’s arm and dragging him over to meet Dean.

\- + -

Dean, of course, decides to be a dick to Cas.

“Are you sure you’ve got the right figures?” Dean glares at Cas, who’s sitting on the garden bench, head bent over his iPad while keying in some notes. “These don’t look right to me-”

“I have calculated it down to the precise weight.” Sam’s busy adjusting the trebuchet that they’re building - it’s half the size of normal yet with twice the power - but he can see that Cas looks offended.

Dean shrugs. “Dude, all I’m saying is that we've got to win this, and if you can’t help us-”

Cas straightens up, and stares at Dean. “You don’t need to insult me,” he says. ”If you don’t want my help, I can just leave.”

“Whoa, hey, no need to get your feathers all ruffled up.” Dean throws himself onto the grass right next to Sam, ignoring Cas.

“Dean -” Sam wants to tell him to take it easy on Cas.

Cas’s eyes are focused on his iPad but his hands are gripping the edges of the device tightly, face pale and his lower lip trembling a little.

“Shut up, Sammy.” Dean snaps. Sam throws a piece of balled up paper at him in annoyance and stalks off, heading into the garden shed to pick out more wood, leaving Dean to his internal drama. He realizes lately that Dean is edgy whenever Cas is around - not that Cas doesn’t act just as awkward and nervous with Dean nearby.

Oddly enough, when he gets back, Dean’s taken over the trebuchet that Sam was working on and Cas is sitting on the grass, watching him while holding onto a paper plate with a half-eaten slice of apple pie in one hand and a fork in the other. Sam notices that Cas is sitting right next to Dean and is practically in his personal space - which would have pissed Dean off before - but somehow he doesn’t look angry now. Dean still sounds a little curt when he’s speaking, but Cas looks a little happier, even when Dean reaches out to brush away a few stray crumbs of pie crust off Cas’s shirt.

Cas’s cheeks turn pink at this, but he doesn’t move away.

Sam wonders at the abrupt change in their attitudes towards each other.

“Pie fixes everything,” Dean explains mysteriously to Sam when he asks, just as Dean comes round to check on him before Sam heads to bed.

Sam doesn’t understand it and tells his big brother. Dean just ruffles his hair, grunts out a “‘nite, Sammy,” and switches off the night light like he does every night, before leaving the room.

\- + -

They spend the next few days working together to finish the project before the weekend. The three of them have fallen into a routine of sorts - Sam goes to class, aces his tests, avoids getting punched by the school bully, then rushes out when the last bell rings to hop into the car and they head home to work on the trebuchet - but this time around, Cas is with them.

It’s always been Sam and Dean, and now it’s Sam and Dean and Cas. Dean jokingly calls them “Team Free Will”, which Sam gleefully paints onto the side of their trebuchet while Cas carves cool-looking Klingon symbols from his Star Trek Companion Guide.

Sam has decided that Cas is the coolest addition to their group, even if he still acts weird and skittish around Dean. Dean, on the other hand, has taken to staring at Cas a lot lately.

On Saturday, Dean borrows Bobby’s truck and they pile the trebuchet into it, covering it with tarp. Dean drives them over to the open clearing a few miles outside town, and there, they test the trebuchet.

It works beautifully. Sam gives a loud whoop and turns to hug his brother, only to find that Dean has his arms around Cas. They’re both grinning at each other, elated, and Sam can see that Cas is blushing.

Dean looks up and catches Sam watching them. His face turns red, before he shoves Cas away roughly, pulling Sam into a hug and then he’s talking a mile a minute about how awesome they’re going to be the next day.

Dean doesn’t see the hurt look on Cas’s face, but Sam does.

\- + -

That night, Sam hears the front door slam and he glances out of his room window in time to see Cas stalking down the driveway, away from the house, his shoulders hunched and tense. Later, when Sam’s getting ready for bed, Dean comes into his room. He looks angry and frustrated, rubbing his forehead as if he has a headache.

He snaps at Sam, doesn’t wish him goodnight and doesn’t turn off the lights before leaving.

\- + -

The next day, Dean’s mood is a little better, although there’s an odd tension in the air between him and Cas when Dean swings by to pick him up before they head to their cousin’s farm. Sam wants to ask them what’s going on. He takes one look at Dean’s face, however, and decides against it.

They beat the Campbells with their invention and Dean crows in delight over their winnings - before they sit down to a well-deserved hot meal. Cas, Sam notices, is quiet, and picking at his food, and he’s reminded of the old Cas when they had first started hanging out.

When Sam catches Cas looking at Dean, a sort of helpless, unhappy expression, he recognizes that look. He’s seen this before, when his mom and dad had a bad fight one time, and his dad had left the house that night. At breakfast the next day, his mom had looked up from where she had been making pancakes to glance at the empty chair next to Sam. Her face had been wearing the same exact look.

His dad came back hours later, telling Sam and Dean to pop by their Uncle Bobby’s place for dinner so that he could apologize to their mom alone. Sam might have been seven, but even then he was pretty sure they did much more than apologize, because the next day his mom was humming happily around the house while their dad had a soft look on his face.

Sam realizes that Cas likes Dean, and if the way Dean’s been sneaking glances at Cas, the feeling is mutual. Except that they’re being morons about it.

Sam’s going to have to do something about it. He’s got an awesome idea on what to do.  


\- + -

Sam carefully lays out his plans. He sends a text to Cas, telling him that he’s left his Star Trek Companion Guide (seriously, Cas treats it like it’s the _Bible_ ) at their shed where they had kept the trebuchet.

The text reply from Cas is immediate.

When Cas arrives, he knocks on the door of the shed calling out Sam’s name before pushing it open to step inside. Sam darts out from where he’s hidden around the corner and yanks the door shut, sliding the bolt across and locking Cas inside.

He can hear Cas banging on the door from inside, his shouts muffled, but Sam’s already making another call.

Sam pretends that he’s stuck inside the shed and begs his brother to come rescue him. Within seconds Dean comes running out of the house, heading straight for the shed. From the same hidden spot, Sam watches as his brother unlocks the door and pushes it open, calling out to Sam.

Sam comes up behind Dean, shoves him into the shed before he locks the door once again, effectively trapping both Dean and Cas inside.

“Sam, you little -” Dean is swearing through the door.

“I’ll let you out in two hours, so work out your issues together like adults,” he yells back at his brother. “Cas is part of our family whether you like it or not, so stop making him sad, you jerk.”

Apparently Cas must have said something to Dean, because Sam can hear the words “that little shit” and “I’m burning his Doctor Who DVDs”.

Nervously, Sam considers letting them out in an hour instead of two.

\- + -

An hour later, Sam pauses outside the door, trying to hear if they’re talking, but it’s all strangely quiet inside. Curiously, Sam unlocks the door and opens it slowly -

\- and sees his brother and his friend, locked together in a kiss. Cas is clinging onto Dean’s shirt, while Dean has his hands framing Cas’s face, holding it in place.

Neither one of them seem to have heard the door opening, and continue as if they’re oblivious to everything else, holding onto each other as if they plan to never let go, ever again.

Sam quietly closes the door, leaving it unlocked this time.

\- + -

Dean doesn’t burn Sam’s Doctor Who DVDs. He does, however, switch his shampoo with liquid detergent, and their dad has to physically separate them both before Sam can drip more bathwater onto the carpeting.

\- + -

Life goes back to normal, except that Dean is spending more and more time with Cas, and less time with Sam. Sam misses his brother, and he’s feeling a little sad until one day he comes home from school to find a miniature lamp in the shape of TARDIS - built by Dean and painted by Cas - on his desk. Next to it is a plate with a piece of pie on it.

Sam grins. He realizes that he has the best brother ever, who’ll always take care of him, and a friend who’ll always be there for them.

And he wouldn't want it in any other way.

**Author's Note:**

> So when Etharei said "wouldn't it be funny if they assigned us each other's prompts", she was being a prophet. Prophetess. Something. Hope you enjoyed this, bb. ♥
> 
> Written for the Dean/Cas Summer Lovin’. Beta'ed by janesgravity, and also Cydsa who stepped in at the last minute with tons of advice. You are all awesome. ♥


End file.
